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Many times people are faced with the question of how to pray. For many of us, it only smacks us in the head when we face a catastrophe. No matter the circumstances, we still need an answer. Where does faith come in? Where do we pray? Does it do any good if we are the only one praying? Do we need to fast when we pray? Do we need to pray in private or should we pray publicly? Most forms of prayer are chosen by based on your preference or comfort level. When it comes to faith however there tends to be a kind of fervor about one's belief that can be very divisive and a source of great anxiety for the one in need of intercession. There are several schools of thought.

One idea says that you have to pray and IF you have enough faith God MUST answer your prayer. They will say things like "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." Many will often quote Jesus when he challenged His disciples that if they had just a tiny mustard seed's worth of faith they would be able to move mountains. In their estimation this means that it is up to you to have faith in order for your request to be answered. They will often repeat the words of Jesus to someone who is struggling with a particular difficulty and reprimand them for not having enough faith. If your prayer is not answered it is because you have not believed hard enough or depended on God as much as you should have.

There are others who say that we must believe when we pray and that God does answer but he is not obligated to say "yes" to every prayer. They will also subscribe to "God said it. I believe it. That settles it." However, they will tend to pray and also ask for God's will to be done. They will often refer to Jesus prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane when He ended by saying "Not my will but yours be done." According to Christ's example, they will say, we must always ask for God's will to be done when we pray. The first group of people will look at this and say that this is a "cop out" and that it's just a way to excuse your lack of faith.

A third mindset is that we should not pray at all for our own needs and desires because a sovereign God is working his plan anyway. It is a lack of faith to ask for our state of affairs to change. They will often cite the apostle James where he said, "When you ask, you do not receive because you ask with the wrong motivation." These individuals say that we must trust God to provide. We must not presume to know God's will. We must not to usurp

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